Netanyahu, Benjamin

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NETANYAHU, BENJAMIN

Israeli politician, born in 1949, in a family of university academics close to the Zionist right. His father, Benzion Netanyahu, was the secretary of Vladimir Ze'ev Jabotinsky. In 1968, after studying in the United Sates, Benjamin Netanyahu enlisted in the Israel Defense Force (IDF) and volunteered to perform his military service in an elite Israeli unit, in which he remained for five years. In May 1972, at the Tel Aviv airport, he participated in neutralizing a Palestinian group that that taken over a Sabena airliner, with some hundred passengers aboard. In the same combat unit were also Ehud Barak, future prime minister, Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, future Army chief-of-staff, and Dani Yatom, future head of Mossad. He was discharged from the IDF in 1972 having reached the rank of captain following the Yom Kippur War. After the army, he completed his studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), receiving his master's degree in management studies in 1976. He remained in the United States where he was involved in various commercial activities.

During the summer of 1976, after the death of his brother Yonatan, during the famous Israeli raid on Entebbe, Netanyahu joined the party of Menachem Begin, the Herut. The following year, in memory of his brother, he founded the Jonathan Institute for Terrorism Research, at Jerusalem. In 1982, recommended by Moshe Arens, an important figure in Herut and Israeli ambassador to the United States, he joined the staff of the Israeli embassy in Washington, then filled, from 1984 to 1988, the post of Israeli

ambassador to the United Nations. His tenure at the UN took place under the Israeli Likud-Labor coalition, with alternation of the prime ministers, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Shamir. On 1 November 1988, having returned to Israel, he was elected a Likud member of Knesset, then was named, on 25 December, deputy foreign minister in the coalition government led by Yitzhak Shamir, becoming thereby the rising star of Likud.

Within this party, Netanyahu belonged to the current of Herut, led by Shamir and Arens, while two other tendencies were significant, one headed by Ariel Sharon and Benny Begin, the other by David Levy and Yitzhak Modai. In October 1991, he was the spokesperson of the Israeli delegation to the Middle East peace conference, at Madrid. The tone of his remarks there made many think of him as the heir-apparent to Yitzhak Shamir. In November 1991, he joined the cabinet of Prime Minister Shamir, to handle specifically the peace process. This appointment was a consequence of some differences that had surfaced between Shamir and the new foreign minister, David Levy. In April 1992, Netanyahu's name came up as a replacement for Levy, thought likely to resign.

After the Labor Party came to power, in July, 1992, Benyamin Netanyahu focused all his efforts on becoming the leader of Likud. On 25 March, 1993, he was elected to lead this party, with 52.1 percent of the votes, against 26.3 percent for Levy. The first sabra to head Likud, he committed himself to upholding the dogmas of the nationalist right. At a congress of the party, which took place between 16–18 May, he consolidated his position at the top of Likud by obtaining control of its executive organs. On 19 October, following, after the Israeli-Palestinian accord, signed in Washington in September, he conceded that the peace process with the Palestinians was irreversible, but insisted on maintaining Israeli sovereignty over the Occupied Territories. During the first six months of 1995, his quarrels with Levy weakened Likud, intensifying personal animosities and social-ethnic cleavages. During the month of November, following the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, his popularity dropped in public opinion, which reproached him for having contributed, through his extremist political rhetoric, to a climate of hate, with the end result that the prime minister was assassinated.

In February 1996, in anticipation of Knesset elections, in the course of which the prime minister would be, for the first time, chosen by direct universal suffrage, Likud joined with the ultranationalist party, Tzomet, headed by General Raphael Eitan. A few weeks later, it expanded this alliance, to include the Gesher "Bridge" Party of Levy, who had resigned from Likud. Thereby he became the sole candidate of the Israeli right, confronted by that of the Labor Party, Shimon Peres, favored to win. On 31 May 1996, Netanyahu was proclaimed prime minister, elected with 50.4 percent of the votes cast, against 49.5 percent for Peres. He became the youngest prime minister ever of the State of Israel and the first head of government chosen by universal direct suffrage. On 18 June, he presented his government, constituted around the Likud-Gesher-Tzomet alliance, along with representatives of two ultra-Orthodox religious parties (SHAS and the National Religious Party) and two centrist groups (Third Way and Israel be-Aliyah). In his program, the new prime minister affirmed his desire to pursue the peace process, but announced his intention of redefining the Oslo Accords, signed between the Israelis and Palestinians. Opposing the creation of an independent Palestinian state, he advocated the development of Jewish settlements, upheld the unity of Jerusalem, and favored maintaining Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. Between 1996 and 1997, his intransigence and many turnabouts wound up blocking the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations on the application of the Oslo Accords, leading to much criticism from the international community and a part of Israeli society. On 15 January 1997, Netanyahu and Yasir Arafat signed an accord on Israeli withdrawal from the city of Hebron. This was the very first accord signed between the Israeli right and the Palestinians.

On the following January, the "Bibigate" scandal burst out, when Netanyahu made a public statement that he had cheated on his wife and his political opponents were trying to blackmail him. On 8 January 1998, David Levy, his foreign minister and rival for leadership of the party, resigned in response to the charges concerning the alleged blackmail. Pressed to make some concessions, Netanyahu signed, on 23 October 1998, the Oslo Accords II, providing for the withdrawal from an additional 13 percent of the territories to the Palestinians. On 21 December, when he was being repudiated for his policies, particularly concerning the Palestinians, both by the opposition as well as by some of his supporters, the Knesset passed a motion authorizing elections, by 81 votes of the 120 in the Knesset, a vote confirmed in a final ballot, on 4 January 1999, by 85 votes. Previously the Knesset had rejected, by majority vote, the five conditions Netanyahu intended to impose on the Palestinians before putting into effect the withdrawal, provided for in the Oslo Accords II. On 25 January 1999, as a result of the primaries of Likud, he obtained 75 to 80 percent of the votes cast, running against Moshe Arens, becoming again his party's candidate for the post of prime minister. On 17 May following, defeated by the candidate of the Labor Party, Ehud Barak, and having obtained only 43 percent of the votes against 56 percent for his adversary, Netanyahu resigned from the leadership of Likud, where he was replaced by Ariel Sharon. His party had won only nineteen Knesset seats. On 28 March 2000, an investigation of him was opened, for embezzlement of funds, breach of trust, and obstruction of Israeli justice. On the following 27 September, the justice department declined to prosecute him, for lack of sufficient evidence. Netanyahu returned to the Knesset in the elections of 2003 and was appointed minister of finance by Sharon. Within the Likud, Netanyahu assumed a leadership role among the "hawks," opposing Sharon's proposed plan for disengagement from disputed territories and opposing the prime minister's apparent acceptance of the eventual creation of a Palestinian state.